Breaking News
Becker Lied to McCain
Evidence abounds that President Obama's radical union-backed nominee to the National Labor Relations Board is ACORN tainted.
(Page 2 of 2)
An SEIU spokeswoman explained in October that even though Local 880 and Local 100 affiliated with SEIU in the mid-1980s, the union's international executive board moved in September to revoke Local 100's charter because the bargaining unit was "not financially viable" and "simply couldn't meet requirements to be a stand alone union."
The local had until Sept. 30 to appeal the disaffiliation decision but didn't do so, she said.
Yet there's no evidence of this decoupling of the local from the mother ship on SEIU's national website. The site's Louisiana page lists Local 100 as an SEIU affiliate and links to the local's website.
The Local 100 website continues to describe the local as affiliated with SEIU and to identify Rathke as the bargaining unit's chief organizer. Rathke continues to identify himself on his website as "Chief Organizer of Local 100, Service Employees International Union (SEIU)."
Confused? You're supposed to be by this game of institutional musical chairs.
This kind of deliberately created organizational confusion is standard operating procedure for ACORN.
It helps because when affiliates get into trouble, ACORN can always try the plausible deniability defense. It's always a rogue employee or a subsidiary acting without permission from the top, ACORN claims. Trying to get the goods on ACORN and affiliates turns into a game of political whack-a-mole. Titles change, people move around, money is transferred, and outsiders often give up investigating ACORN out of sheer frustration.
In a backhanded compliment to Rathke, who designed ACORN's byzantine network of affiliates tightly controlled from the top through interlocking directorates and regular intra-network financial transfers, now SEIU appears to be employing the same approach.
Who knows if we should believe Anna Burger, SEIU's international secretary-treasurer, who told a congressional hearing months ago that her union "cut all ties to ACORN" after paying the group a total of $1,835,000 in 2008 and 2009.
An SEIU spokeswoman added, "We have suspended all contracts and active work with ACORN" pending the results of a supposedly independent inquiry by longtime ACORN ally and former Massachusetts attorney general Scott Harshbarger.
The report from Harshbarger, a former president of liberal group Common Cause, exonerated current ACORN leadership and only gently scolded the organization over the undercover child prostitution video saga.
SEIU boss Andrew Stern, a radical Saul Alinsky disciple who sits on ACORN's "Independent Advisory Council," was less than forthright when asked last week if SEIU was planning to renew its relationship with ACORN.
"From what I understand ACORN is reconstituting itself differently so it would be hard to know, and many of their local affiliates are reforming themselves as independent entities separate from the national organization," said Stern.
"I think it's unclear. Will there be a national organization? What kind of national organization? What that national organization will do. So it's hard to figure out until they figure out as a result of the Harshbarger report who they're going to be."
Perhaps Stern will give Becker his old job back. It should remind him of how closely tied he's been to ACORN, in case he ever again gets a chance to give Sen. McCain an honest answer.
About the Author
Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist at a conservative watchdog group in Washington, D.C. Vadum is also author of Subversion Inc: How Obama's ACORN Red Shirts are Still Terrorizing and Ripping Off American Taxpayers.
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S.L. Toddard| 2.4.10 @ 7:20AM
mon⋅o⋅ma⋅ni⋅a
–noun
1. (no longer in technical use) a psychosis characterized by thoughts confined to one idea or group of ideas.
2. an inordinate or obsessive zeal for or interest in a single thing, idea, subject, or the like.
Alan Brooks| 2.4.10 @ 8:19AM
As long as AS doesn't tar Obama with ACORN's brush-- that is guilt by association.
ZerObama| 2.4.10 @ 4:06PM
Obama taught union organizing for ACORN--that is guilt of his association.
Good work, Vadum--keep the heat on!
Alan Brooks| 2.4.10 @ 10:51PM
ACORN and Obama are not synonymous.
Iran-Contra and Reagan are not synonymous.
Robert Byrd and the KKK are not synonymous.
tailgunner| 2.5.10 @ 2:15PM
Wrong. Obama did legal work for ACORN over 'affordable housing'. He brags about being involved with ACORN and promises they will help 'shape' his legislative agenda. Obama IS synonymous with ACORN.
Reagan took responsibility for Iran-Contra, even though dogged Democratic political hacks failed to prove he was aware of it. So it would be fair to say they were synonymous.
Robert Byrd was an OFFICER and RECRUITER for the KKK. He recruited scores, maybe hundreds of racists that went on to terrorize and murder blacks during Jim Crow. Yet he is a past Democratic Majority Leader of ten years and still an honored senior member of the Democrat Party.
Damn right Byrd is synonymous with the KKK. And Democrats therefore are also synonymous with racism and oppression.
ZerObama| 2.6.10 @ 9:08PM
Thanks, tailgunner--great post!
C'mon, Alan; let's see what you've got now.
Ret. Marine| 2.4.10 @ 7:26AM
A obama affiliate lying to CONgress, no you don't say. What else is expected from this pretender-n-thief, an honest to goodness American Patriots? This whole admin. is nothing but the cream of the liberal rot. The real question is, does this progressive lite repukeagain McNasty have the support of any of his comrades to do anything about it?
Benzopf| 2.4.10 @ 4:20PM
There's an even chance that I might be in agreement with you, but since you are using some Alternate English Language, it's impossible for me to say. Do mind writing in Actual English so those of us without a handy secret decoder ring can understand what your attack is and who it's directed against?
Throw me a bone here.
Jason B. Kane| 2.4.10 @ 8:05AM
I guess I wonder why this topic even merits 5 words, much less 500. Does a union leader lie? Only when he or she is speaking. If McCain didn't know this Marxist was lying then Ol' John is to senile to go out by himself.
Alan Brooks| 2.4.10 @ 8:24AM
"If McCain didn't know this Marxist was lying then Ol' John is to senile to go out by himself."
Question is, re McCain, why didn't the GOP run Palin at the top of the ticket? And BTW, why on earth -- though this is ancient history-- did the GOP run Dole at the top of the ticket rather than Kemp in '96?
loulou| 2.4.10 @ 10:17AM
McCain is a doddering loser. He won the nomination thanks to the brain dead RNC and Democrat voters.
WE didn't want him.
Can't he, at long last, please just disappear from the national stage?
Margie| 2.4.10 @ 11:34AM
Yes, thanks to the "open Primaries", in some states, the Democrats are allowed to vote for the Republican nominee.
Is that something that we can change?
yves Bauer| 2.4.10 @ 1:29PM
Hahaha Palin at the top of the ticket. Democrats won because of her and she was only VP. If she would have been a candidate for president, democrats would have WON every state. I wish Palin would go away she is useless.
ZerObama| 2.4.10 @ 4:03PM
Uselessness is something you know a great deal about, loser.
John Navratil| 2.4.10 @ 9:25AM
I'm certainly no fan of Obama or the left-wingers who support him, but let's not get carried away.
The quoted statements on which this article relies are:
"Do you perform work for and provide advice to ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups while employed by your current employers or on a volunteer basis?"
"Senator McCain, I have never done so."
It doesn't take much of a leap to read the response as "Senator McCain, I have never performed work for or provided advice to ACORN or ACORN-affiliated groups while employed by my current employers or on a volunteer basis?"
Has Becker worked for SEUI? Obviously so! Did he lie to McCain. Not clear to me at all. And I don't think we have to rely of the definition of "is".
A Nony Moose| 2.4.10 @ 10:34AM
Perhaps you should make an effort to read the whole article. The relationship between SEIU 880 (Becker said he gave them advice) & ACORN is well documented.
John Navratil| 2.5.10 @ 8:50AM
I did read the entire article.
I did not state Becker was not tied to SEIU and ACORN. I focused on the fact the he was called a liar because of his answer.
This article does NOT establish anywhere that Becker provided any of this assistance WHILE EMPLOYED BY (HIS) CURRENT EMPLOYERS.
If McCain wanted to know whether or not Becker had EVER provided assistance he could have asked that question. He did not. He asked "while employed by ... current employers."
I you want to call someone a liar, please document the lie. This article never once mentions a timeline or, if it does so, it eludes me.
Dienekes| 2.4.10 @ 11:04AM
Perhaps a better question would be if, in his roll as AGC at SEIU, did Becker provide advice to any SEIU persons with regard to ACORN, or was any of his advice used to benefit (or shared with) ACORN or any of its officers or affiliates.
A Nony Moose| 2.4.10 @ 12:28PM
SEIU 880 is, or was, ACORN. If 880 got a benefit, then by definition ACORN did too.
carolinem| 2.4.10 @ 1:37PM
No one cares about this nonsense. A better question would have been, "Why should the National Labor Relations Board continue as an entity, instead of being dismantled as another overblown, overintrusive government bureaucracy?" Unfortunately, Republicans have lost the nerve to ask such questions.
Kris| 2.4.10 @ 4:04PM
BREAKING NEWS: ACORN and SEIU are two separate organizations. You people are insane.
ZerObama| 2.4.10 @ 4:07PM
Yeah, WE'RE insane. Liberalism is a mental illness.
Marc Jeric| 2.4.10 @ 4:10PM
ACORN brownshirts, SEIU thugs, and teacher unions constitute a nation-wide web of local soviets headed by Abu Hussein from Kenya, our Community Organizer-in-Chief.
Ken (Old Texican)| 2.4.10 @ 6:39PM
Of course Becker lied to McCain.....
The question is..did McCain ever figure it out?
McCain is one of those authentic heroes, but it is time to hang up his cleats in honor.
Yosemeti Sam| 2.5.10 @ 12:56AM
" ... Titles change, people move around, money is transferred, and outsiders often give up investigating ACORN out of sheer frustration...."
Commission General Honoré of Katrina fame to
look into political hurricane ACORN!
Honoré - as in Honor.
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